Optimization of Diffusion Bonding Process Parameters of Aluminium AA6061-Fly Ash Composites Using Taguchi Method

This paper focused to determine optimal bonding parameters based on Taguchi method for maximizing bonding strength. The experiments were conducted on diffusion bonding machine using aluminium fly ash (AFA) composites. Three bonding parameters such as temperature, pressure and time, each at three levels were examined. Taguchi L27 orthogonal array was used as a design of experiment. The response table and the analysis of variance (ANOVA) were calculated to determine which process parameters significantly affect the bonding strength and also the % contribution of each parameter. The results show that the combination of factors and their levels of A2B3C3 i.e. the bonding done at a temperature of 475°C with a pressure of 10 MPa and time for 20 minutes yielded the optimum i.e. maximum bonding strength. Finally, ANOVA results indicated that all three process parameters significantly affected the bonding strength with a maximum contribution from the bonding temperature (85.93%), followed by bonding time (12.6%) and bonding pressure (1.48%). It is also observed that the bonding strength of the diffusion bonding process can be improved effectively through this approach.